


make you whole

by casfallsinlove



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Road Trips, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 21:40:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2667287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casfallsinlove/pseuds/casfallsinlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is a funeral, mixed-up feelings, quiet motel rooms, and a long journey home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	make you whole

**Author's Note:**

> um it's been forever since i wrote anything so i apologize if this isn't up to par <3
> 
> this fic contains brief mentions of alcohol abuse, soft drug use and smoking--but is not as angsty as it sounds, i swear.

The lighter clicks and hisses as Dean ignites his third cigarette of the hour. He inhales as much as he can, holds it in his lungs until it bursts out of him in a hazy cloud that makes his eyes sting while it fades away in the cold winter air.

He doesn't want to go back inside, where the walls of his childhood home are more oppressive than they ever have been, where the atmosphere is thick and cloying, more suffocating than the cigarette smoke. 

So he doesn't. He stands on the porch instead.

He's been to funerals before, and they were never like this. Never so stifling. More finger food and drunken reminiscing, less uncomfortable silence because no one is _really_ that cut up about the whole thing.

It's probably fucked up, that Dean isn't sad his dad just died. 

He can't bring himself to care. 

The door creaks open behind him and Cas steps out. Scruffy bastard's actually shaved and put on a suit for once. It fits him well. Dean's been thinking it all day.

Cas gives him a  _look_ , then comes forward and pats down Dean's jacket until he finds the pocket with the coveted cigarettes. He fishes them out, holds them up accusingly. "These are mine."

"I know, I stole them from your coat."

"Well I'm not going to be indirectly responsible for your tragically premature cancerous death." Cas stops, blanches. "Shit. Sorry."

Dean looks at the lawn, covered in snow. Remembers building a snowman with Sam and Dad when he was just a kid, sitting on Dad's shoulders to see how tall they could make it. 

"I'm not," he says. He pushes off the rail. "Let's get the fuck out of here. I wanna go home."

They're the first to leave. Not that the gathering was a large one anyways. Just Bobby, Ellen, Jo. Rufus. Sam back from Stanford with Jess in tow. His mom insisted they pile into her house after the service and now everyone's sitting around sipping their drinks and not talking about what a great fucking guy John Winchester was. Just listening to the heavy, melodic tick of the goddamn clock. 

Dean kisses his mother goodbye, whispers that he'll call soon. He spares a wave for the others. Heads outside while Cas is quietly promising, "I'll look after him, Mary, you don't have to worry," like Dean is a friggin' _baby_. 

The Impala is frost-bitten and cold and he cranks up the heat as soon as the engine roars to life. There's still that smell, though. The grease and Old Spice smell that permeates the worn leather, the Dad-smell that won't Febreze away even all these years later.

Fuck. 

Cas climbs in the passenger side and looks at Dean carefully. His eyes zero in on Dean's shaking hands with laser precision. "Do you want me to drive? I've got my emergency stash in my pocket, could knock you out until we hit the motel."

Dean's knuckles crack around the steering wheel in an effort to steady his trembling fingers. It's tempting, to take Cas up on his offer. But he already feels a bit like he's fraying, like he's splitting at the seams, and weed has a tendency to make him run his mouth off which he needs to be in control of right now. 

"I'm good," he replies, and pulls away from the curb. Lawrence's streets are familiar but they're not home, not anymore, and he's relieved to finally get back on I-70. It's only when they're cruising down the highway heading out of Kansas that he chances another look at Cas. He's reclining back in his seat, eyes closed. Dean squints at him. "Wait, you brought your pot to my old man's funeral?"

"Always be prepared, that's my motto."

Dean snorts. "Oh yeah, you're a regular boy scout."

Cas salutes him without even opening his eyes.

 

 

 

 

They're somewhere east in Colorado when Dean knows he's too tired to stay behind the wheel, if not for his own safety then for Cas's. They've been on the road for eight hours and there's still at least another nineteen to go until they're back in Seattle, so he pulls into the first motel with a vacancy sign he sees and sends up a prayer of gratitude when he spots a diner just a little further down the road.

They check-in and dump their shit on the beds and, after changing out of their suits, walk down to the shabby little roadside diner, where they eat breakfast food even though it's nearly midnight. 

Cas yawns as he loads his waffles up with whipped cream, eyes heavy-lidded when he stares at the little pot of fresh blueberries the waitress gave him and then proceeds to pick out the few that he deems inedible. Fuck if Dean knows what makes them any different from the others, but then nothing about Cas has ever made any sense.

He makes a little pyramid of the berries on the sticky tabletop next to the salt and Dean watches for a while, strangely mesmerized, then rasps, "What are we gonna do, Cas?"

Cas's eyes are tired but attentive when he looks up, cocking his head at Dean. "Whatever you want to do," he says, like it's that easy, then adds, "There's no rush to decide, is there?"

Dean slurps at his milkshake. No, he supposes there isn't.

 

 

 

 

He dreams that night, and he dreams badly.

It's his father's ghost, come back to haunt him. Pervading his nightmares because even though he's gone, he isn't. Hurtful words bouncing around Dean's head, smothered with the sour taint of booze, the feeling of  _not good enough I'm not good enough_  prominent even now. Years of helping his mom mop up Dad's piss, his puke, dragging him up the stairs and trying not to wake Sammy, finally getting out of there for college but feeling so guilty about it that he shut everyone out, and  _oh_ , the  _guilt_ —all come rushing back to him at once like an old VCR on fast-forward. 

Dean wakes up cold but sweating, panting hard and fast and shaking inside and out. He blinks through the darkness, listens to Cas breathing softly in the next bed. Cas. The memories are still burning behind his eyelids, but the silhouette of Cas's body under the covers is reassuring, softening the sharp spike of anxiety in his gut. 

Cas was there. Just over four years ago, Dean's first day at Seattle University, Cas was sitting on his bed in their shared dorm room rolling a joint like it was no big deal. His grin had been wicked, a troublemaker if Dean ever saw one. He loved it. 

Loves him. Completely. 

They slept together that first year, about eight weeks into the semester after Dean had finally broken down and told Cas everything. Then again on Dean's birthday because Cas "forgot to get him a present". Then again at the end of year to celebrate the decision to get an off-campus apartment together after the summer. And a handful of times since, for various other weak excuses. 

They don't talk about it. It just  _is_. They're best friends first and everything else second and Cas has never shown any interest in making it more than an occasional if-we're-high-or-drunk-or-celebrating-or-depressed thing, so Dean's not gonna say anything. 

Still. Doesn't mean he can't take. 

He isn't at all careful about slipping into Cas's bed, half-hoping he  _will_  wake up. It's already so much warmer, the blankets less scratchy somehow, and he pushes his face between Cas's shoulder blades over his thin t-shirt and breathes.

"Dean?" Cas's voice is sleepy and soft and his expression, when he rolls over, is even softer. 

"My dad drank himself to death and I'm glad," Dean whispers, eyes prickling and hot, "I'm so fucking  _relieved_ , Cas, you have no idea. How terrible does that make me?"

"Not terrible at all. It means you can relax, Dean. You can stop now." 

Stop. Dean doesn't know what it means to not worry about his family. To not feel guilty about leaving them behind. But with his dad out of the equation—"Fuck." The realization hits him all at once. "I don't have a dad anymore."

His throat feels thick like he might cry but Cas says dryly, "You can have mine if you like?" and it makes Dean smile, despite everything. 

"You mean the guy who still calls me 'Dan' and who fucks off for ninety percent of your life? Thanks, but I'll pass."

It makes Cas smile too and he touches gentle fingertips to Dean's brow. "What do you need, sex or drugs?"

"Just you," Dean mutters, and wriggles closer until he's pressed all up against the hard, warm lines of Cas's body, one arm curled like a comma over his flat stomach under his shirt, the other tucked between them.

"Oh," Cas says, like this is the last thing he expected to hear, and maybe it was. They fight and they fuck and they share joints and pizzas and they platonically touch each other all the time, but they don't do this. Even after sex, they go back to their own beds. 

Dean listens to Cas's heart beating under his ear. "Just until morning?"

A hand lands in his hair. "Okay."

 

 

 

 

As predicted, they don't talk about it. In the morning they drink rich hot coffee and are on the road by first light. Dean ignores a call from Sam. They listen to the radio and talk about Marvel versus DC and take breaks at truck stops and find a McDonalds for lunch. Cas takes over driving somewhere around hour seven and Dean tries not to notice how easily he fits behind Baby's wheel. 

They've just crossed the border into Idaho when Cas tells him, apropos of nothing, "You'd make a good teacher."

Dean goes with it. "Dealing with a bunch of snotty-nosed little brats all day? Yeah, no."

"I was thinking more higher education. College level, maybe. You could teach literature and get those books you were always complaining about off the reading lists. You’re smart, Dean. You could do it."

"Maybe," he considers, though he's got no intention right now to do  _anything_. For the first time in his life, Dean's got no plan. No next step. "What about  _you_ , anyway?" he asks Cas. "You still gonna do your EMT training? Gotta admit, man, the uniform would be fucking hot."

For some reason, Dean chooses this moment to push the hair away from Cas’s forehead with his fingers, because that’s something all best friends do, obviously.

"Maybe," Cas hums, totally unaffected, "Not straight away."

"Yeah, should probably flush the drugs out of your system first, huh?"

"I don't know what you mean," he replies innocently, fingers drumming on the wheel, which would be a whole lot more believable if he hadn't offered Dean his weed stash not twenty-four hours ago.

"You savin’ lives, me teachin’ the next generation," Dean marvels, "That's practically respectable for a drunk and a stoner."

Cas nods solemnly. "I'm as astonished as you are."

 

 

 

 

They get another motel in Boise. This one is even worse than the last one, the carpet alone so stained and gross Dean almost considers sleeping in the back of the Impala. But Cas drags him inside by the hand and drops their bags on the bed.

The bed. Singular. Cas could have gotten a different room, but he didn't.

It's been brewing all day, since last night really, so Dean isn't surprised when Cas kisses him, just takes Dean's face in his hands and crushes their mouths together like he's been wanting it forever. He tastes of the fruity energy drink he picked up when they stopped for gas and Dean loves it because it's familiar, it's home. 

Cas methodically strips him out of his clothes while still standing right there in the middle of the room, peeling Dean's t-shirt over his head and kissing his way up the bare skin revealed to him. It makes the muscles in Dean's stomach jump and he grabs at Cas's hoodie, rucking it up around his armpits, desperate to see those gorgeous tattoos and maybe trace them with his tongue or his fingers or _something_.

By the time they're down to their boxers and are sprawled out on the bed Dean's feeling more turned on than he's been in weeks; he's not had Cas's body under him like this since the day Cas finished his finals before summer and they were buzzing and happy and horny because they were finally  _done_  with college. 

"C'mon, Cas," he groans, eyes slipping closed, wanting more even though the furious dry humping they've got going on is so hot Dean's brain is already starting to fry. 

But then Cas slows down, softens his movements and places steadying hands on Dean's waist to get him to ease his frenzied rutting, too. He leans up and kisses Dean gently, tongue swiping lightly across his bottom lip.

"What are you doing?" Dean asks breathlessly, because Cas's M.O. is usually hard and fast, not... this. Dean doesn't even know what this is. 

Cas rolls them over so he's on top, nuzzling into Dean's neck. He sets up a slow grind of his hips and Dean can feel how hard he is in his boxers, how hard they both are, and he shudders from head to toe. 

"I can't get enough of you," Cas breathes.

It sounds like something Dean wasn’t meant to hear and he has no fucking idea what to say to that anyway so he doesn't say anything, just plasters his hands to the small of Cas's back and tugs him closer, kissing him something fierce, because that sentiment goes both ways. “I want you to fuck me,” he pleads, and Cas moans quietly in response.

Cas stays soft the whole time after that; he produces a condom and sachet of lube from his wallet ("Always prepared," he says with a wink) and preps Dean as gently as he can. His body is warm and pliant under Dean's touch but he doesn't give in to Dean's demands of  _more_  and  _harder_  and  _faster_. 

It's so intense, so loaded. Every look Cas gives him is burning and it's not long before Dean is sobbing with every thrust, eyes prickling as he clutches Cas close to him but unable to look away. He feels wanted. It's scaring the goddamn shit out of him but he's been a bundle of mixed-up feelings since his dad's funeral and Cas is giving him an outlet here, letting him pour it all out without his usual self-destructive vices. It takes him out of his head, and that’s exactly what he needs. 

A film of sweat coats his body but he's on fire, white-hot pleasure skyrocketing inside him. They've only done this a handful of times but Cas knows his body, can map it out with knee-shaking accuracy. "Cas, oh god," Dean tenses, coming hard, thighs trembling around Cas's waist, and he rides out his orgasm with his fingers bruising Cas's skin and his mouth pressed slackly to Cas's stubbled jaw. 

Cas grunts and slams his hips in, flush, crushing his mouth to Dean’s just as he pulses inside of him and Dean hits a new high, a long moan rumbling out of his chest. Pleasure washes over him in waves until he's feeling completely wiped out, muscles like jello, with zero desire to ever move again even though Cas is a dead weight on top of him. Maybe _because_ of that.

A thumb touches the corner of one eye, then the other. Cas is cradling his face, smiling down at him. "Good?" he asks breathlessly, and Dean almost laughs because the idea that it  _wasn't_  good is so friggin’ absurd.

“Yeah, good.” He lays a palm over the solar system on Cas’s chest, presses his mouth to the smattering of stars on his shoulder. “Fuckin’ awesome.”

Cool air sweeps over Dean’s tacky skin when Cas gets up and walks on unsteady legs to the bathroom, removing the condom as he goes and coming back with a damp washcloth which he dutifully cleans them both up with. This is all routine, but chucking the towel to the floor and climbing under the sheets next to Dean isn’t. They don’t do sleepovers.

“Don’t be a blanket hog,” Cas warns him, snuffling sleepily into his pillow, apparently not freaking out at this development at all, and wow, how unfair.

“Your face is a blanket hog,” he retorts, and yeah, okay, not his best. Cas snorts, flinging an arm over Dean’s chest.

“Go to sleep,” he orders, “and I’ll blow you in the morning.”

_Jesus_. Dean lies awake for a long time after Cas falls asleep, unable to get used to the warm breath puffing over his chest.

 

 

 

 

The morning arrives miserable and rainy but Cas stays true to his word and wakes him with a hot, wet mouth wrapped around his cock. They shower separately after Dean has returned the favor and Cas makes a run for it with his jacket pulled up over his head to check them out at reception while Dean loads their bags into the car.

Despite everything that’s happened, he feels... content. It was nice, this morning, waking up to the press of a warm body and sleepy, slack-jawed kisses. Something he could probably get used to, if given the opportunity.

It stops raining almost as soon as they cross the border into Oregon, the pale winter sun finally making an appearance and burning away the clouds. Cas dozes in the passenger seat, a cigarette tucked behind his ear, stars peeking out under the collar of his thick knit sweater. Every inch the beautiful rebel. Dean sort of wants to kiss him awake when he stops for lunch, but settles for punching his thigh instead.

They’ve only got another seven or so hours to go until they’re back in Seattle, but when Dean says that he wants to power through so they’re home before midnight, Cas shakes his head.

“One more night in a motel,” he says, “I’ll spring for the room, if you like.”

“Why?” Dean asks, perplexed. “Our shitty little apartment is less than five hundred miles away, Cas. I thought you wanted to get back?”

“There’s no rush, right?”

“Yeah, you keep saying that.” Dean narrows his eyes at Cas, and has the distinct feeling that he’s missing something here. Maybe he’s been so wrapped up in his own angst lately that he hasn’t been paying attention to Cas’s. Maybe the sex they had last night wasn’t just to make _Dean_ feel better. Maybe lots of things.

But Cas doesn’t ask for anything ever, has spent the last four years putting up with Dean’s shit and never asking for anything in return, and if this is something he needs then Dean can give it to him.

“All right, fine,” he shrugs, “but you’re paying for it.”

 

 

 

 

Third time lucky must actually be a thing, because the motel they check into later that evening is pretty nice. The towels smell fresh and clean, the bedding is a plain blue as opposed to the usual grandma’s-curtains floral bullshit. The TV even looks like it’s from this century.

“Wow, we really lucked out here,” Dean remarks, as Cas pushes past him to the bathroom to pee. There’s only one bed again. Dean feels a shiver of anticipation run through him and he sets about plugging his phone—largely ignored for two days—into its charger to distract himself.

“We should go out tonight,” Cas suggests when he comes back into the room, drying his hands on his jeans. “There’s a bar across the street.”

Dean’s game for that. He’s stayed remarkably sober since the funeral and he figures he’s allowed one night where he can pretend that his dad didn’t exist and forget this weirdass _hopeful_ feeling about Cas, and if alcohol is the only way for that to happen then so be it.

At the bar, a smoky and crowded place with low lighting and the best kind of music playing, they grab themselves a booth and order a huge platter of buffalo wings to line their stomachs before Cas disappears and comes back with two glasses and a bottle of really good whiskey. Perks of being a trust fund rich kid, Dean guesses, even if Cas actively resents his parents and their money nearly all of the time.

“How are you doing, Dean?” Cas asks him seriously when they’re both on their second glasses.

Dean shrugs. “I dunno,” he says, because it’s true. He could definitely be worse. It’s nice sitting here with Cas in this familiar setting, feet touching under the table and the phantom tingle in his spine when he thinks about their motel room. “Hey, man, thanks for coming to Kansas with me. I ‘preciate it. Know it wasn’t exactly a bundle of laughs.” He smiles and doesn’t miss the way Cas’s face relaxes in response.

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” Cas says, “After all, we never had to break into the emergency stash.”

“That is true,” Dean agrees, and clinks their glasses together in celebration. He looks at Cas, sitting there with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his hair a mess, eyes a little glassy from the booze, and a rush of affection sweeps through him, filling him up and spilling over until he knows it must show on his face, knows he must look goofy and _in love_ because Cas is staring back at him, unreadable, and Dean forces himself to look away, look down, before he says something stupid, something they’re not ready for.

But it’s Cas who opens his mouth, who speaks carefully like he’s stressing the importance of every word, and says earnestly, “I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else.”

It feels like a breakthrough. Like a crack in an impenetrable twenty-foot high brick wall and Dean swallows hard. “Yeah,” he replies. “Yeah.”

(Later, Dean will lay Cas out on the bed and open him up with his tongue and his fingers, and he’ll rock into him gently, gasping curses into the sweaty crook of Cas’s neck and watching hickeys bloom along the ridges of his shoulders, and it will be sweet and hot and feel suspiciously like making love.)

 

 

 

 

Dean figures it out about seventy miles away from their apartment.

When they get home, this—whatever the fuck this is—will stop. They’ll have no reason to bunk up under the same set of sheets anymore when they’ve both got their own bedrooms right there. And after three nights of doing just that Dean realizes he’s going to miss it, more than he should, more than he wants to.

He opens his mouth, then closes it again. A small space away, Cas is doing the puzzles in the newspaper they picked up at breakfast, squinting at a crossword and thoughtfully tapping a blue gel pen against his teeth. There’s already ink smudged on the side of his hand. He jots something down and smirks victoriously to himself.

Dean drives on.

 

 

 

 

Their apartment is cold and musty. It has that feeling places get when they stand empty for a while. 

“Oh good, Charlie remembered to water my plants,” Cas sighs in relief, and Dean snorts when he sees a post-it note stuck to Cas’s pastel yellow watering can that reads ‘You owe me, bitches xoxo’. “I’m going to go and check on the bees,” Cas decides, hauling up the window that opens onto the fire escape. Dean’s pretty sure that he’s not actually allowed to keep a small beehive on the roof, but Cas has always rebelled against authority so Dean would like to see someone try and stop him. 

He flicks on the heat and dumps their bags in their respective rooms. He can unpack later. Right now he wants nothing more than to wash the motel stink away from his skin with a long hot shower.

Cas is banging around in his room doing god knows what when Dean is dry and dressed again, his most comfy sweats on with a Redhawks hoodie that is probably Cas’s and thick fluffy socks that he’s not even ashamed of owning because they’re the fucking best. He cooks lasagna because he’s craving something that isn’t from a plastic wrapper and finely dices vegetables into the sauce because Cas refuses to eat them if they’re bigger than his thumbnail.

“Gabriel has been here and stolen the emergency twenty dollar bill I keep on my shelf,” Cas declares furiously, stomping into the kitchen a while later. Dean raises his eyebrows.

“Dude, you’re friggin’ loaded, why do you need an emergency twenty dollar bill in the first place?”

Cas looks at him like he’s on a lower plane of existence than everyone else. “For emergencies,” he says, as if it’s obvious and Dean is an ape, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Oh, of course. So we’re plotting our revenge tonight then?”

Eyes narrowed dangerously, Cas nods, “Yes.”

For all intents and purposes it’s just like any other evening in the three years since they’ve been living here, but the journey to Kansas has shaken something loose in Dean, knocked his world slightly off-kilter. They don’t talk about it, they eat and they catch up on The Walking Dead and plot a plan of attack on Gabriel, until Cas conks out right there on the couch and Dean shoves him with his foot and orders him to bed.

Cas goes, shuffling drowsily down the hallway, and Dean stays where he is for twenty minutes, waiting for something he doesn’t know to happen, and when nothing does he turns the TV and the lights off and locks the door and slips into his own bedroom.

Where Cas is.

Curled up in the middle of Dean’s bed.

Gazing at him through the darkness.

“I wanted to be asleep,” he murmurs, “it would have been easier for you. But I can’t seem to.”

Dean stares. “What would have been easier?”

The blanket mound shifts when Cas shrugs. “Pretending.”

Dean peels off his sweatshirt, his t-shirt, tugs loose the drawstring on his sweats and shimmies out of them until he’s standing there in his boxers. He climbs on top of the covers, boxes Cas in with his limbs, breathes hotly in his face.

“For real?” he asks, because the guy he’s kind of in love with is in his bed, making some sort of unsaid statement, and it’s hard to believe.

“Always,” Cas whispers, dry lips ghosting Dean’s damp ones, “I always want you,” and Dean pushes their mouths together, brief but hard, meaningful, before he scrambles to get under the blankets. He sticks to his own side of the bed, lies on his side to face Cas, and places his hand, palm up, in the gap.

Of course, Cas doesn’t get it. He blinks at Dean’s fingers uncomprehendingly, so beautifully _Cas_ , until Dean huffs something easy that isn’t quite a sigh and says, “Hold my fucking hand, you dork.”

Cas smiles, and does, and everything slots into place.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on [tumblr](http://casfallsinlove.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
